"but it is the rare person, and I can't think of one, who has built his or her own home to specifications."

I did as well, including drafting of the plans, I dug holes, I poured and screeded concrete, I worked on the framing, siding and roofing. I wired the place, did a fair bit of the drywall and most of the painting. A substantial amount of our building materials were produced within a 50 mile radius. The windows were made from recut salvage glass and a lot of the interior finishings were salvage as well.

We did not do it to be intentionally "green", the term was not coined then, we did it as a statement of independence. It was also the cheapest way, at the time, to provide ourselves with what we considered affordable housing and to provide us with the kind of house that we wanted, that had relatively little to do with suburbia.

At the time, we were not considered unique. A lot of our friends did exactly the same thing.